Underaged Chinese Gymnasts? Wednesday, Aug 13 2008 

Politics and Sports , , pointnine 12:24 am

So, in (God help me!) my final Olympics posting for the night, I just heard Bela Karolyi saying that he believes the Chinese women’s (girls’!) gymnastics team may be under the required age of 16 (which is a relatively recent rule change). So I looked around online, and turns out that’s not just him saying that, there’s a lot of speculation about it. Now China, who blocks free use of the internet and won’t allow Google to operate there unless they block searches on things like democracy (I’m sure I don’t have the details right, but you remember that controversy), would never, never, fake documentation of age, would it? They are desperate to win the medal count, even figured out their required number of medals to win…I don’t doubt they would do it for a second. Earlier in the evening I was noticing one girl in particular looked really small. Not thin, just really small.

Well, who knows.

Anyway, here are some of the interesting articles I found:

NYT: Athletes Only as Old as China Says They Are (aka “turn a blind eye”)

IHT: Records suggest Chinese gymnasts might be underage (aka “guilty, guilty, guilty)

National Post: China, IOC deny charges of underage gymnasts (aka “who, us?”)

 

Togo Wins its First Olympic Medal! Wednesday, Aug 13 2008 

Sports and Uncategorized , , pointnine 12:06 am

I’m a sucker for stories like this. In the US and I’m sure in other big medal-winning countries we take for granted that we’re going to win and win big. But for most of the world’s countries there will be no medals. When they win one it is BIG! Front page news! And a very first medal…? WOW! Go Togo!

I am watching the women’s (girls’!) gymnastics right now and it’s so painful — I like gymnastics a lot, but it’s all about catching every single mistake, and there have been some big ones for the USA. It’s stressful to watch! The first woman to go had a couple of big mistakes and she just clearly was fighting off tears afterward and the cameras followed her mercilessly, right in her face. I felt so bad for her. Can’t she just have a little privacy to deal with her reactions? Tough stuff. Chin up, USA women’s gymnastics! You are doing things I couldn’t dream of! Go USA!